In a general sense, everything may be viewed as a resource which either has utility in and of itself for a particular application or in some way contributes to the accomplishment or support of another resource in achieving a particular application. For example, a playground is a community resource. The playground itself is comprised of a collection of other resources which typically includes slides, swings, climbing structures, benches, play areas such as ball diamonds and perhaps swimming pools to name a few possibilities. Each of these resources is, of course, a collection of items which may be viewed as resources themselves. A slide typically contains resources such as a ladder, guard rails, the sliding surface itself, mounting hardware and paint comprising, at least, a partial list. This brief and simple example illustrates that resources are generally hierarchical in nature.
Determination of the resources required to accomplish a specific task, operation or venture is often done in an ad hoc manner. Even well organized but manually directed resource determination schemes often leave much to be desired unless the resource requirements are simple. An experience base in a particular area of resource determination is typically the main reason that certain manually-based approaches are predictably successful. However, if the task, operation or venture is complex, the determination of a full suite of required resources become difficult at best and sometimes nearly impossible to achieve.
Determination of resources has several areas of difficulty that must be addressed. The first area involves being able to identify, or perhaps even classify, all of the types of resources that may be encountered. The ability to do this would be extremely beneficial since it would allow a more systematic approach in general to the determination of the required resources needed to accomplish a given task. The second area involves the ability to determine a complete set of resources that are required to support fully the particular resource being addressed. Without a systematic approach in this area, the possibility of missing at least some of the necessary supporting resources in-the analyzing and planning stages of a project is probable. An approach to resource determination that addresses defined resource categories in the identification of all levels of supporting resources would be very useful. This would allow the definition of categories of resources that may be used in defining all levels of supporting resources needed to support fully the particular resource being addressed.
Another area needed in resource determination is some way to overlay policy that may exist or be needed and would have an impact. on the way in which existing or needed resources would be used in the resource determination process as well as the actual management of the resources. Since available resources are typically somewhat limited, some sort of directing intelligence is needed that would be able to orchestrate and guide the resource determination and management process based on overall priorities and objectives. This would allow the integration of various levels of specifications and procedures to be achieved so that the potential for resource optimization would exist.
Practically, a collection of available resources is a time dependent quantity which is often changing at some indeterminate or unpredictable rate. As this occurs, the ability to shift and redeploy available resources to all of the resources being addressed in a particular application becomes a resource management task that may be complex if an overall operation is extensive. Having a resource management scheme that is computer based and highly systemized would facilitate the accomplishment of resource management.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a way both to determine and manage resources that is highly automated and will accommodate varying degrees of resource complexity.